Hi, I’m Eric Ray Anderson and I’ll be teaching Introduction to Shakespeare this session. I’ve been living and working in Seattle since 1981, and my career has run parallel to that of Freehold’s founders (all dear friends of mine) and the institution itself. I’m so happy that in my first outing as an instructor here I get to teach one of my favorite subjects: working to make Shakespeare’s language come alive for the actor.
Shakespeare’s characters love language and they love the power their (perceived–sometimes they’re right about this and sometimes not) command of the English language gives them. This makes for a fun, exciting, enlivening project for anyone wanting to perform Shakespeare’s writing aloud and in context. Shakespeare is second to none at revealing psychological truths about human beings in a wide range of circumstances, by means of the specific language choices they make. The text is full of clues for the actor, found in word choices, the use of verse and other rhythmic ideas, antithesis, juxtaposition of imagery (often surprising and even counter-intuitive given context), punctuation etc, etc. We will learn about and explore these things and more, working on (as a good friend of mine has put it) the simplest and hardest job we have as actors, which is to actually do something on stage. This time while speaking Shakespeare’s words. Looking forward!
